The new iPhone 5

The new iPhone 5 was the main event of Apple’s Media Event this week as it was the product that everyone was waiting for. It was the one that skyrocketed Apple stocks before the event, and it is the one that continues to skyrocket that stock price. Pre-orders for the iPhone 5 sold out in an hour, the first for any of Apple’s hyped product releases. You can expect long lines of people with umbrellas and lawn chairs in front of the Apple Store soon. Apple stock as of Friday is 691.28, a stunning record for the company. Let’s take a detailed look at this new iPhone.

Design

The new design of the iPhone 5 has, at first glance, little to no change. However, it has changed. The iPhone 5 is 18% thinner than the iPhone 4S, 20% lighter, and 12 % less volume. It is 7.6 mm thin and weighs 112 grams. It is 3.31 in squared. It is marketed as the thinnest smartphone ever. Apple engineers really had their work on for this one. They made the new nano-SIM card. They combined LTE data and voice onto ONE chip instead of two individual ones. The new Lightning connector is 80% smaller. The A6 chip is more powerful but even smaller than the A5 chip. The display has been made thinner by making a integrated touch technology screen while keeping the Retina Display that has come to partly define the iPhone. It is made of a single piece of aluminum, therefore it is unibody. It is a super-smooth piece of aluminum too!

Screen

Like all of Apple’s refreshes this week, the iPhone got a screen size bump and one’s gotta love the new display. It is a beautiful 4 inch Retina Display. They make it so it isn’t awkward to use, like some of the other smartphone makers who go with awkward, big screens. It has the same width, just a new height, so you are not stressing your thumb, trying to reach the the other side, and you can still reach the top with ease. The apps for the iPhone are already being made to fit the gorgeous display, and if they haven’t been, don’t worry, they won’t pixelate like iPhone apps do on the iPad. The display gives you 18% more pixels than the iPhone 4S. It has impressive 1136by640 resolution. Incredible! Colors also get a boost with 44% more color saturation.

4G and LTE

We all saw this one coming. The iPad 3 came with 4G and LTE so we knew the iPhone 5 would. The speeds are incredible. It has 100 Mbps for LTE. Also, Wifi gets a boost as well-up to 150 Mbps. Incredibly fast.

A6

The fastest iOS processor has come and this processor brings high quality graphics. In fact, I believe the graphics can be compared to this generation consoles (PS3, 360) fairly and some would say favorably. The graphics performance is twice that of the amazing A5 chip of the iPhone 4S. The processing performance is also twice as fast so you’ll notice applications opening and loading even faster. It will just be a more smooth experience. Also, the A6 chip will not deplete battery and you will get 8 hours on wireless and 10 on video. I believe that at a point in the near future, Apple iOS products will be able to rival that of the laptops because of the performance they build into it, the first being the iPad.

EarPods

I know I brought these up in the iPod nano and touch articles but since it will come with all of them, I have mentioned them in all three articles. Again, these headphones are supposed to rival my expensive pairs. According to Apple, they tested hundreds of prototypes on hundreds of people. I hope that those hundreds of people were right about the prototype they chose to become the Apple EarPods. I just hope Apple can make them a lot better than the last earphones they made.

Camera

Panorama, like the new iPod touch, is a new feature in the iPhone 5 that allows you to take stunning 240 degree photos. The panorama can be up to 26 MP, a stunning MP count for a phone. It reminds me of something I’ve seen, an app called 360 degrees, I just hope this new panorama feature is a lot better than that app. The camera of course takes 1080p video. It also has more stabilization to prevent shaky footage. It can now detect up to 10 faces in the camera’s face detection software. You can now take photos while you are recording. The FaceTime front camera is 720p and looks stunning. You can make FaceTime calls over cellular now, allowing you to not have to be at a wifi connection, giving it a boost against it’s Microsoft rival Skype.

Lightning

Like all of Apple’s releases this week, the new iPhone 5 also features the new Lightning adapter. It marks the first time Apple has changed the adapter since the inception of the iPhone 5 years ago. It is supposed to be more durable and faster than the 30 pin connector. As accessory manufacturers catch up to Lightning, you can buy an adapter so that all your stuff is still compatible.

Wow Factor?

One question that was on everyone’s minds was, what is that “one more thing”? After looking into the iPhone 5 and throughly investigating it for this article, I realized that Apple didn’t really innovate here. It didn’t wow me like all other releases of iPhones have, although I am impressed by the engineering that went into making it so thin and light. I believe that this could actually be a good thing. The iPhone is mature. Apple didn’t bring something revolutionary to the table because they didn’t need to revolutionize what they had. All the releases of the iPhone have always improved from the last, and they change from their predecessors in a usually significant way. The iPhone 5 didn’t change that much from the iPhone 4S because there wasn’t really a change needed. The iPhone 4S has been their most successful phone up until now. Just the velocity at which the iPhone 5 preorders sold at is an indication that the iPhone 5 will take that role. Apple doesn’t need to change what works. If you look at the features of each iPhone, you can tell that the change from the last one to the next decreases and that is because the iPhone has matured and doesn’t need any more radical change to it. Of course, none of what I’m saying should hold Apple back from innovating. If Apple has a good idea they will use it, just as they changed the screen size, which in my opinion was a good idea. Also, if Apple goes too long without innovation, this could be a problem. I think that Apple brought more to the table from the last generation to the next in their new iPods, one can easily see the radical and effective changes to the iPod nano and touch as compared to not being able to see it as well with the iPhone 4S to the 5. Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone 5 is a great release but it isn’t revolutionary, and perhaps thats the way it should have been. Don’t change what works is the wow factor here (and yes the 30 pin dock connector works, if Apple saw something better in Lightning, then they should, by all means, change it, because that is taking a risk and it is innovative, I will discuss the new Lightning connector in another article). Apple did do right here, no changes needed.